Last fall, the Boston innovation community banded together to create a one-of-a-kind event to counter the pay-to-pitch culture that’s become an unfortunate norm in the startup community. Unpitch is designed to give entrepreneurs the opportunity to chat with investors in a casual, no-pressure environment – and a free lunch, of course.
So strong was the last year’s showing, that its creators – New England Venture Capital Association, Harvard Innovation Lab Hacker-in-Residence Abby Fichtner, Objective Logistics CEO Phil Beauregard, and Terrible Labs’ Jeremy Weiskotten, among others – have decided to get regroup and host yet another Unpitch on Tuesday, June 24. And it looks like there will be many more to come.
"We had great success last year and it seemed that everyone kept asking us if we'd do it again. So we've decided to make it an annual event,” Beauregard told BostInno via email. Continued the Beauregard:
If you look at the pictures from last year you realize that everyone was having fun. It just worked. People were reasonably relaxed and it was a casual event. It was special to see really green entrepreneurs, people who were literally at the napkin phase of their gestation, get the chance to meet their VC heroes.
The event will take place from 12 noon to 2 p.m. at Communispace’s spacious headquarters, and it’s already promising to be bigger and better than before.
Apricot Capital’s Jennifer Lum, NextView Ventures’s David Beisel, Atlas Venture’s Ryan Moore, Venrock’s Aaron White, Project 11’s Reed Sturtevant help make up the nearly thirty investors and venture capitalists that are currently signed up to sit down with fresh innovators this June.
And we still have a couple of weeks to go into the event kicks off, meaning that list is bound to grow.
The demand to snag a seat at Unpitch will be big this year, so early-stage entrepreneurs looking to apply should do so by 9 p.m. on June 15. All applicants will be notified of their status by June 17th.
Shared Beauregard, "I've made no qualms in letting people know that I think pay-to-pitch is a steaming pile. So once again, we'll show the community that we can do this better, and we can do it for free."
Check out our recap and photos from last year’s Unpitch here.
Writer's Note: The application deadline for Unpitch has been updated since this story's original publishing. It now reflects the correct deadline.
